


There's the Face That You Still Remember

by thinenotthee



Category: The Two Princes (Podcast)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Lavinia is here because I missed her in s2, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, more comfort than hurt because i'm soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinenotthee/pseuds/thinenotthee
Summary: Running around for weeks on end with heightened stress levels will do a number on anyone. Rupert and Amir just after season 2.
Relationships: Prince Amir/Prince Rupert (Two Princes Podcast)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 175





	There's the Face That You Still Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, imagine posting 2 fics in a week. Wild. Anyway, The Two Princes is wonderful and I somehow forgot that listening to any part of it opens me up to a world of emotions because they're just so in love.

“Hey, Amir?” Rupert asks, placing a hand on either side of his fiance’s face. Amir has gone and picked up Rupert’s terrible habit of rambling and it just doesn’t suit him.

“Yes Rupert?” Amir responds, and Rupert can hear as much as see the grin spreading across his face at what’s to come.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” 

Amir kisses him and Rupert feels all his anxieties leave him. Amir is back. His Amir, who hours before he thought he’d lost forever. His Amir, whose lips are warm and slightly chapped from living on the fringes of society for the last few weeks.

Rupert pulls away from the kiss and feels like his head is spinning, but not in the way kisses from Amir usually have his head spinning. He winces and places a hand on his forehead, as if holding it there will somehow hold him together, too.

“Rupert?” The former prince of the West faintly hears Amir say his name, but everything feels like background noise. “Rupert, are you alright?”

“What? I’m fine,” he drawls out, but when he braces himself on Amir’s shoulder, his fiance scoops him up, and it’s too tiring for Rupert to even keep his eyes open at that point. He doesn’t know why he’s so tired, he just _is_. He rests his head against Amir’s shoulder as they go, and Rupert thinks he hears Amir calling his name, but everything is so murky and muddled in his brain and he’s too exhausted to try to figure any of it out.

\--

Rupert wakes up with a start, sitting up so fast he smacks into someone’s hand.

“Ow,” he mutters, both from hitting his head and the headache he already has.

“Oh, Rupert! You’re awake!” cries a familiar voice, and when Rupert casts his glance over, sure enough, there’s his mom sitting next to him.

“Mom?”

“Rupert, honey, are you okay? I heard about all the terrible business with Malkia and when I demanded to come see you, they told me you had gone on a quest and they hadn’t heard from you in weeks!”

Rupert, whose mind is still reeling following a string of nightmares, is in no way prepared to deal properly with his mother. Of course, he’s glad to see her, but on top of everything else, she can be a lot.

“I’m fine, Mom.” His voice is scratchy and sore and he wonders if he’d been screaming as much in his sleep as he was in his dreams.

“Obviously not! I get here after the dust has settled and Amir tells me you dropped like a fly.”

 _Amir._ Where is he? Rupert needs to go find him, make sure he’s okay, that he hasn’t _forgotten_ -

“Rupert,” his mother says, her tone more serious than he’s heard in a long time. It demands his attention. “What happened? Amir told me what he could remember, but he says it gets fuzzier with each passing day.”

Rupert takes a deep breath, preparing to explain the events of the last three weeks, but just as he opens his mouth to start, the door opens and Amir walks in. An audible sigh of relief escapes Rupert. Amir is here, and if he’s been talking to his mom, that means he remembers that he’s not Chad.

Seeing him sitting up in bed, Amir shoots Rupert a huge grin, which he returns in kind.

“Queen Lavinia,” Amir says, bowing slightly to Rupert’s mother. “Rupert, I’m glad to see you’re awake.”

“Glad to be awake,” Rupert responds. He turns to his mother and says, “Mom, I promise I’ll explain everything to you very soon, but is it possible I could talk to Amir alone for a minute?”

“Yes, dear, but you’re not wheedling your way out of this one. Kisses, darling.” She stands, leaning over to kiss both of his cheeks, which causes Rupert to flush a deep red.

As his mother leaves the room, Amir nods his head slightly as she passes him. He deflates once the door shuts behind her, and Rupert can’t help but laugh a little.

“I swear, I will never know how not to tense up when your mom is around.”

“You should relax. She adores you!”

Amir crosses the room to occupy the seat his mother just left, grabbing Rupert’s hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better. I’m not totally certain what happened, but I suspect scampering around for three weeks with heightened stress levels didn’t do me much good.”

“I’d have to agree,” Amir says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. There’s a heavy pause before he continues. “I was really worried about you.”

“Sorry about that. I swear, I don’t do that on a regular basis.” At Amir’s continued silence, Rupert squeezes his hand. “I’m okay, Amir.”

“I know. I just felt so… helpless. Just when it seemed like everything was going to be okay, you collapsed and I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was sit in this chair for the last three days and hope nothing was seriously wrong.”

“Wait, wait, wait- _three days_?” There is no way Rupert has been in this bed for three days.

“Yeah. Scariest three days of my life, and that’s after going on _two_ separate quests with you.” The levity in Amir’s voice is forced, and Rupert hates hearing him sound like that.

He scoots over in bed and pats the space next to him. “Get up here.”

Amir looks like he’s going to argue, but decides against it. He sits on the edge of the bed, toeing off his shoes before pulling the cover back and climbing into bed beside Rupert. Rupert tugs his hand to wrap Amir’s arm around his waist. He then uses his free hand to pull the comforter over their heads.

“Rupert, what are you-”

“Whatever is said under the blankets stays under the blankets,” Rupert interrupts. “You don’t have to be big, strong Amir under here. It’s just me. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

There’s a long silence before Rupert feels a rush of air over his face from Amir’s sigh. “It’s like I said; I just felt really useless. I’m remembering less and less about the three weeks my memory was gone, but I know that I wasn’t very helpful to you. More like the opposite, I’m sure.

“And then the fight with Malkia happened and I remember feeling so proud that I was helping for once. And then you collapsed and again I felt like there was nothing I could do. Much worse than being trapped in a cave full of snakes.”

Rupert hears Amir take a shaky breath before he continues. “I know you say I don’t have to be big, strong Amir, but I don’t really know how to be anything else. I was trained from childhood to always have a grasp on the situation, to always have a plan. But sitting in this room, watching you fight whatever demons while I couldn’t do anything about it… I felt like a failure. If I couldn’t protect the one person I cared about more than anything else, then what’s the point? How could I serve an entire kingdom if I couldn’t do anything for you?”

Rupert’s heart cracks at the same time Amir’s voice does. He wraps an arm around Amir, stroking his back while Amir breathes harshly into his shoulder, clearly trying to fight back tears.

“You don’t have to do it alone. None of it. Not serving the kingdom or making plans or going on unplanned adventures. There’s me, there’s Joan, there’s our moms. You don’t have to have everything figured out. We’re only eighteen, Amir. I think if we’ve learned anything in the last 3 months, it’s that no one has everything figured out at any age.”

Amir stays quiet, so Rupert does what he does best: he talks. 

He talks about how happy he’s been these last few months. He tells funny stories about all the terrible outfits his mother has put him in over the years. He talks about how excited he is to build this kingdom with everyone’s help. He talks about how glad he is that Porridge and Fitzroy are getting along.

“Like a house on fire,” Amir contributes, breaking his silence.

“Don’t go giving them any ideas,” Rupert whispers as though their dog and dragon can hear them.

“They don’t need my help,” Amir says, chuckling. The sound is reassuring to Rupert. As much as Amir might complain about Rupert’s tendency to go on long rants, he knows Amir actually really appreciates them.

Rupert pulls the covers down from around them, reveling in the fresh air entering his lungs. Amir falls silent again, looking at Rupert so long that he prompts, “What?”

Amir shakes his head, smiling. “Nothing. Just admiring my terribly handsome fiance.”

Rupert flushes bright red at that, all his words threatening to spill out of him to brush off the compliment, but instead getting stuck in his throat. “You can’t just say things like that!” he finally manages to get out.

“And why not? Because someone’s embarrassed?” Amir teases.

“I’m recovering, you can’t do this to me,” Rupert says, hiding his face in his hands because _oh gods could he get any more red?_

Amir’s hands wrap around Rupert’s wrists, pulling his hands away and placing soft kisses all over Rupert’s face. It does nothing to help Rupert’s embarrassment, but he’s not going to deny that he’s missed having Amir to himself like this.

Amir stops after a moment, and Rupert thinks it’s finally safe for him to open his eyes. Amir is staring at him again, lost in thought.

“Just because I pulled the covers down doesn’t mean you can’t still talk to me, Amir,” he says, cupping Amir’s cheeks with both his hands.

“I’m just trying to remember what happened. Every time I try to remember I can picture less and less. Now it’s more the memory of feelings than anything.”

“What do you remember?”

“Confusion. Irritation. Pride. Anger. Guilt. It all blurs together.”

Rupert rubs at the lines that appear on Amir’s forehead when he furrows his brow in thought. “I am more than willing to tell you what you missed, but I think in the interest of time and energy, it’d be best if my mother was here for me to explain it to her as well.”

“Right. Do you want me to go get her?”

“That’d be great.” Rupert presses a kiss to Amir’s forehead, right where the lines were a moment ago, as Amir gets out of the bed.

“I’ll be right back,” he says as he slides his shoes on.

“I’ll be here.”

Amir rises to leave the room. As he opens the door, he turns around. “Rupert?”

“Yes, Amir?”

“I love you. And thank you.”

Rupert smiles, even if he can feel the blood returning to his face. “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me on Tumblr!  
> https://thinenotthee.tumblr.com/


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